Sterilizations at Issue in Hospital Mergers

An emerging conflict over sterilization is getting new scrutiny from American Catholic bishops and could threaten vital health care partnerships that depend on the church, some observers say.

The debate coincides with a recent buying spree among Catholic-sponsored health care networks, which support the church’s rejection of birth control. Often they have merged with nonreligious hospitals that routinely perform sterilizations as a form of birth control.

From 1994 to 1999, 17% of all hospital mergers have involved Catholic and nonreligious hospitals, according to Irving Levin Associates, a company that tracks the health care industry.

Many of these newly merged hospitals have performed sterilizations. That is a practice the Vatican wants to end, though not everyone within the church agrees on how.

Under current Vatican directives, any Catholic agency that has merged with a hospital that performs birth control procedures must restrict its involvement “in accord with the moral principles governing cooperation.”